20121217

Obama ups anti-Zionist foreign policy - to the bewilderment of his pro-Israel voters

Barack Obama and Defense Secy candiate Sen. Chuck Hagel

Since Obama's re-election to the presidency last month, many people concerned about global jihad movement's growth have felt trepidation. Publishing on her blog, Israel's Caroline Glick has called to task both Mr. Obama and those professed "concerned-about-Israel" who voted for him. In just a month, Obama has upped his ante against Israel, both through not deterring the U.N.'s Palestinian recognition vote, and in Obama's appointing anti-Zionist candidates, Susan Rice and Chuck Hagel, for cabinet secretary posts. Ms. Glick also calls to task those surprised that they re-elected this agenda.

Many in the American Jewish community are aghast to discover that President Obama is planning to appoint former Senator Chuck Hagel to serve as Defense Secretary. If you want the skinny on how Hagel has come to be known as one of the few ferociously anti-Israel senators in the past generation, Carl from Jerusalem at Israel Matzav provides it. ...

Obama enabled the Palestinians to get their non-member state status at the UN by failing to threaten to cut off US funding to the UN in retaliation for such a vote.

Both Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush issued such threats during their tenures in office and so prevented the motion from coming to a vote. Given that the Palestinians have had an automatic majority in the General Assembly since at least 1975, the only reason their status was only upgraded in 2012 is because until then, either the PLO didn’t feel like raising the issue or the US threatened to cut off its financial support to the UN if such a motion passed. This year PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas said he wanted to have a vote and Obama responded by not issuing a threat to cut off UN funding. So the Palestinians got their vote and, as expected, it passed overwhelmingly.

Seeing the upgrade as a Palestinian move is a mistake. It was a joint Palestinian-American move.

And Obama made that move and no one balked. Indeed some New York Jews applauded it.Obama wants to hurt Israel. He does not like Israel. He is appointing anti-Israel advisors and cabinet members not despite their anti-Israel positions, but because of them. ... Let there be no doubt, Obama will get Hagel in at Defense. And Hagel will place Israel in his crosshairs. The only way to foil Obama's ill intentions towards Israel even slightly is to be better at politics than he is. And he's awfully good. Moreover, one of his strongest advantages is that Israel's supporters seem to have never gotten the memo. So here it is: Obama wants to fundamentally transform the US relationship with Israel. He isn't playing by the old rules. He doesn't care about the so-called Israel lobby or the Jewish vote. As he sees it, to paraphrase Jim Baker, "Fuck the Jews, they voted for us anyway."